A Swarajati for Navaratri -2015

Today is the ninth day of Navaratri, Mahanavami – 2015.

Mahanavami was a grand festival during Vijaya Nagara times. Even today you’ll see remnants of Mahanavami dibba, where the festivities would take place.
The traditions of Vijayanagara continued in the Tanjavur and Mysore kingdoms.
So did music and arts. We can’t forget the contributions of people who had origins in the Vijayanagara court to the development of what we call Karnataka sangeeta today.

It’s a common occurrence that ragas go out of vogue and new ragas become popular. Similarly new types of musical compositions also come into the scene. Thus we several new classes of musical compositions starting in the 17th-18th centuries and one such is the Swarajati.

Many a times performed on the stage by dancers as well, a Swarajati is a composition that is primarily made of swaras, and which may or may not have lyrics to go with it. Many swarajatis are taught in the early training for music while some swarajatis (such as those of Shyama Shastri) are very elaborate compositions, in line with the Ghanaraga pancharatna kritis of Tyagaraja.

On this day, I am very glad to present one of my compositions -, a swarajati, in the raga Ramakriya. (This is a traditional, slightly older form of what we call as Kamavardhini/Pantuvarali).

You can listen to the complete swarajati here:

The lyrics are by Ashtavadhani Sri Mahesh Bhat and the vocalist is Vidushi Ragini Sanat.

Happy Vijaya dashami to all visitors of “ಅಲ್ಲಿದೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಮನೆ”.

-neelanjana